Ripple, the creators of the native token XRP, has filed a motion to compel the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose its internal cryptocurrency trading policies as part of the ongoing legal battle with the financial watchdog.
James Filan, an attorney closely following the SEC’s case against Ripple, shared a new motion document seeking to bring clarity as to whether or not the SEC permitted its own employees to trade XRP, which, as per the regulator’s allegations, is unregistered security.
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The motion was filed last Friday on behalf of several defendants, including Ripple Labs, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Ripple executive chairman and former CEO Chris Larsen. The motion asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to compel the SEC to produce data on its trading policies for governing digital assets.
The motion seeks to compel the SEC to provide “anonymized documents reflecting trading preclearance decisions,” not only for XRP but also Bitcoin’s BTC and Ethereum’s Ether. The motion stated, “Defendants also seek certifications concerning SEC employees’ XRP holdings again, either with redactions of personal information or in aggregate form.”
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According to the motion, it states that there have been previous efforts to obtain the information from the SEC who have failed to provide the information. It reads, “We met and conferred with the SEC on this issue on July 8, July 15, Aug. 18 and Aug. 25, without progress.”
According to James Filan, the court has given the SEC until September 3 to respond to the latest motion.
Bottomline
Ripple’s latest legal efforts come as the community anticipates an upcoming virtual meeting with the SEC to discuss the firm’s pending motion to compel the regulator to produce a pack of documents that defendants believe are relevant to their defence. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York scheduled the online meeting for tomorrow.
As reported previously, the SEC started a major legal action against Ripple Labs, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen in December 2020, alleging that XRP was a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering. Last month, Judge Netburn ruled in favour of Ripple Labs by allowing the deposition of the former director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, William Hinman. The SEC’s exec is known for his 2018 speech suggesting that Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was not a security.
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Ripple’s native token XRP has had a rollercoaster ride this year. The coin started the year trading at $0.23 following the crash in December from $0.60 when news broke about the SEC’s case against Ripple. Soon after, the price quickly recovered to trade a high of $1.92 as of April 2021 and has been on a downward trend since then, further amplified by the crypto market crash in May 2021 that saw XRP trade as low as $0.54 in June, representing a 71.8% decline from this year’s high. The price, however, has been recovering, currently trading at $1.14 as of the time of this writing.